Shifting Heart
by Kravius
Summary: Halloween night has lasting repercussions the ripples of which spread across the multi-verse.
1. Chapter 1

**TITLE**: Shifting Heart AUTHOR: Kravius WEBSITE: .com/  
**DISTRIBUTION**: Twisting the Hellmouth, My Blog, Nowhere else please.  
**DISCLAIMER**: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended. World Of Warcraft Belongs to Blizzard. Any other crossovers belong to who they belong to as well. I make no claims on them, nor do I make any money from this.  
**SUMMARY**: Halloween night has lasting repercussions the ripples of which spread across the multi-verse. CROSSOVERS: World Of Warcraft (Main), various others especially later on.  
**FEEDBACK**: Please do send me feedback, it helps me to direct the story and learn from any mistakes I may have made.  
**CATEGORY**: Action/Adventure/Crossover.  
**RELATIONSHIPS**: Various. X/Differing.  
**RATING**: FR18, for violence, horror and some sexual content.  
**SPOILERS**: Various for all seasons of BtVS, and some for WoW up to and including what I know of Cataclysm.  
**WARNINGS**: Nothing that I'm aware of.  
**EDITOR**: _The Cat Lady_  
**AUTHORS NOTES**:

Just a quick note here. I'm taking liberties with Warcraft spells and abilities because I'm trying to make them more 'real world'. I may miss the mark in some cases and in others they may seem a little overpowered. I'm going to try to balance that but that's not always as easy as it sounds.

As for the WoW stuff, I'm hoping even people that don't play the game will enjoy the story on it's own merits and in reality the WoW stuff is more a way to empower the characters I wanted to empower. With luck this will only be the first story in a series and there will, I hope, be many more crossovers included. So there should be something for everyone in here.

Thanks,

_Kravius._

*********

**Shifting Heart  
Chapter 01**

The wind hit Xander Harris' face as he ran through the forest, branches trying to trip him and block his way. Yet he continued to run as fast as his legs would carry him. The entire race through the forest was not, for a change, because he was being chased. No, it was because he enjoyed the freedom he got from moving so fast . It was a month after Halloween and he had undergone many changes since that fateful night. At first he had been scared, more scared than he could ever remember being in fact. Even after his introduction to the nightlife of Sunnydale and its many terrors, nothing had prepared him for what had happened that night. In some ways, he wished he had stuck to his original choice of costume.

You see everyone in the town that had brought their costume from a certain shop, Ethan's, had been changed into the character they had dressed as. For some it had been fun, for others fatal. Buffy had gone as a noble woman and had turned into a useless 18th century ditz that had screamed at everything including passing cars. Willow had been a typical ghost costume and had obviously become one for the night. Xander though, his costume had been a little more adventurous. He had never thought when he had started to play the game round Jonathan Levinson's house that he would end up being quite so intimately aware of his character. Now he knew every aspect of the man's life, every battle, every lost love and of course every tiny bit of heartache that had passed in his characters *very* long life. Perhaps it would have been simpler if he had chosen a human character, but he had not. His character had been a Night Elf from the game World of Warcraft. This meant that Xander had 10,000 years of life crammed into his once again human brain.

At first Xander had not been too worried he had, overnight, put on several pounds of muscle and was much more agile than he had been. This seemed marvellous to Xander and not of concern at all. Then the dreams had started. They had of course been memories of Malufurian, his characters, life. Even that had not been too bad, though he could have done without the memories of some of the massive battles that Malufurian had taken part in with demons and the undead. Then other things had started to happen. Things that had made Xander scared for several reasons. Thanks to Jonno's help, Malufurian had been a top-level end game character. This meant he was *powerful* with full emphasis on death and destruction.

Xander bounded over a river, clearing the 15-foot gap as if it was not there, taking the fall the other side without pause and in fact managing to speed up slightly. His mind going back to the first stumbling attempts at controlling his new abilities, He had started slowly at first, and in top secret. He could not tell the gang what he was going through, especially since they seemed to have no after effects from that fateful night. They and other people he had spoken too seemed to be forgetting the night had even happened. He was worried at first that he was going to turn into an Elf as well. His already six-foot height had become just over 6'3" in a very short amount of time. Something he was not able to brush off as a growing spurt. Since elves could clock in at 7 foot tall, he was worried this was the first sign of a change. Luckily, the growth spurt had slowed down and furthermore he had not sprouted foot long ears or suddenly found his skin changing color to purple. Therefore, he had started to experiment. Malufurian had been a druid in the game and for one night during Halloween so Xander decided to check if he did indeed have any druidic abilities.

The short answer to that was yes, yes indeed he did. While he had the memories of Malufurian, he did not have the skill and experience harnessing the tremendous power he had available. The first spell he cast knocked him out for three days and blew a tree straight out of its roots.

After that, Xander had made sure to use a lower 'rank' of spell. Slowly making his body used to using the power, focusing it and channelling it through his body bit by bit and practising every spare moment he had.

Then eventually he decided he was ready to try out a spell on a vampire. That was a fond memory for sure. The vampire had not stood a chance. While the burning legion, demons in the game, and scourge, the undead were very tough vampires on earth were very weak to natural energies and there was nothing more natural than a druid's spell abilities. It was all about using the power of nature against your foes. Therefore, the vampire had died from a relatively simple spell and it only took one shot. Emboldened from the success Xander had decided to take it to the next level. Malufurian had not been a Balance Druid, in other words a pure spell caster designed to do the most damage possible with his magical abilities. He had been a feral druid, a specialised shape shifter.

Taking the same route as the game. Xander had tried to turn into a bear first. The change was scarily easy to do. What was significantly harder was changing back. Xander had spent three days in the wood dodging humanity until he figured out how to change back. Memories of hunting food in the river and chasing down deer as a bear, not easy at all, had dogged him for a while after that.

Not put off by that Xander had pushed on, in fact skipped a few steps. This is what brought him to be running through the forested area just outside of Sunnydale at closing on 30 miles per hour. Four feet propelled him along the floor, sharp claws digging in and giving him purchase. It was a wonderful feeling. The bear had been amazing, powerful in a way that he could not explain. The sense of potential brutality had been breathtaking. This though, was even more breathtaking. He was so agile, so fast and while the sense of underlying power was less, it was by no means less giddy.

He jumped, his claws catching a tree's trunk and scrambled upwards, coming to a rest some feet off the ground and laying on a thick branch. His tail twitched back and forwards and yellow eyes glowed with enthusiasm. Xander let out a sigh that in his current feline form sounded more like a deep rumbling purr and settled himself down to get some rest. He was way above the ground on the branch and safe so he decided to get some rest. He had found while experimenting with the bear that sleeping in his form helped him come to terms with it. Therefore, with that goal in mind he lay his head on a forepaw and let his eyes droop closed.

~#~

Buffy walked into the library of Sunnydale High with her normal perky step and wide smile that lit up the surrounding area. "Hey, watcher man!" she called out, looking around for her watcher. She sometimes thought he was a bit of a stick in the mud, but he been kind and treated her well. As well, if not better, than Merrick had in fact. Her smile dimmed slightly at the memory of her first watcher and then she shoved the heartache to one side with the ease of practice.

Rupert Giles walked out from behind the stacks with a book in one hand and a cup of tea in the other and flashed his charge a smile. "Hello Buffy, I trust all went well last night?"

"Yep, all good in the land of slay. Though I did overhear a couple of vampires talking about a new mage in the area that seems to like hunting vampires." She said with a thoughtful pout on her attractive visage.

"Really, a mage you say. That is interesting especially if he is on our side, as it were. Please keep your ear to the ground about him and let me know. It would behove us to make friendly contact with them if possible."

Buffy half frowned at him, "Make friends with the mage?" she half asked.

Giles rolled his eyes, "Indeed."

"Right gotcha" she said flashing him a smile, plopping down in a chair and pulling out her history assignment. Then she looked up with another thoughtful frown on her face, "Hey - have you heard from Xander lately?"

"No, I can't say I have actually," Giles said with a matching expression. Then he smiled, "I'm sure he's fine though." He added almost as an afterthought.

"Who's fine?" Willow said as she walked into the library, placed her bag down beside Buffy, and took a chair at the desk.

"Xander," Buffy filled in before Giles could.

"Have any of you seen him outside of class?" Willow asked, "Because I swear he's dodging me," she added with a hurt sounding in her voice. The thought that her oldest friend and crush was avoiding her was more than a little painful for the redhead.

"I doubt it," Buffy said, "He's probably just doing guy stuff or something. It must be difficult for him having no guys around to talk to."

Giles cleared his throat and Buffy added, "His age that is," she flashed her watcher an innocent smile.

"Hmmm," Giles commented and walked into his office.

"Well, if you see him can you let him know I'm looking for him?" Willow asked.

Buffy smirked, "Going to ask him out?"

"Ask who out," a male voice said from the doorway. Buffy and Willow froze and turned slowly to face Xander, who was standing in the doorway. He looked different from his normal gear. The colours of his clothing were muted and most of it looked to be leather as well. Good quality leather at that, Which made Buffy wonder a little, because as far as she knew Xander was not the most well off guy in the world. He walked into the library and Buffy noticed that he was walking differently too. There was no slouch in his back and he moved fluidly like cat hunting.

"No one," Willow put in with a blush and a glare at Buffy who smirked back at her unrepentantly.

"Uh huh, well whoever it is better treat you right," Xander said with an almost feral smile.

"I'm sure he would," Buffy put in with a mysterious smile on her face. Xander did a slight double take at the look and, with his newfound maturity and a wealth of knowledge in his head, quickly put two and two together and blushed slightly.

"Right, well, urh - I just thought I'd drop in see if we are Bronzing tonight?"

"What else are we gunna do?" Buffy asked with a chuckle. Then looked a little more serious, "Done with your self enforced exile then?"

"Huh?"

"We've not seen you outside of class for a month," Willow put in sounding hurt.

Yeah, sorry, had some stuff to sort out. Among other things I had a new job to start too."

"A job?" Buffy asked.

"Yeah, doing some mechanical work for my uncle Rory," Xander said with a smirk. The truth was that his uncle had walked in on him fiddling with some of the engineering work he was doing in his garage one night and hired him on the spot for some after school work. Malufurian had been a leatherworker, as in made clothing, and an engineer. These skills had been passed to Xander on Halloween and he was not going to let them fall fallow. Despite the fact that Jonno had told him not to do engineering on a druid, it was actually working out quite well for real world applications. In addition, it was a hell of a lot of fun. The materials of course did not exist in the real world as in the game, but Xander was finding that what he could not duplicate with simply metals etc, he was able to duplicate in other ways through experimentation.

"Didn't know you knew anything about that," Willow said almost accusingly.

Xander smiled slightly, "I have a passing knowledge." He deferred gently, "I picked up things here and there from my uncle of course, and I need the money, so I thought why not. It should not interrupt patrolling with you guy's or hitting the bronze. Not any more at least," He added the last as an afterthought.

"Is that how you afforded the new clothes? Because it's a good look for you, but aren't you hot in all that leather?" Buffy asked with a slight smile, eying Xander in a way that he was not used to coming from her.

"Something like that," Xander said. In truth he had actually made the clothes himself after finding that while he did not actually know how to skin in the game, it was easy to learn. He was not limited to two professions in real life after all, and ten thousand years of life educated you a great deal. Classes were a breeze now, though some of the knowledge he had simply was not applicable, he had the knowledge of how to work around any gaps. He was not sure, but due to the sheer amount of memories he had and the skills he had picked up over the years, he might even qualify as a genius level IQ now. Malufurian was no slouch when it came to thinking things through, and was damn good at strategy and tactics, as well having led a few raids. It was becoming clear to Xander that it was a good thing he had put so much thought into his character's background.  
Buffy looked at him a little strangely, but shrugged it off as it just being Xander and moved on. "I figure I can get out of the house easily enough tonight. I've just got to finish this assignment before I head home, and then I'm done on my homework for the night anyway. No chores tonight and other than patrol I'm easy."

Xander smirked at the phrasing, but did not comment on that, "So what time?" he asked looking between the two, "I finish work at eight tonight." He added as a help.

"8:30 then?" Willow asked, "Cordelia's boyfriend is playing tonight, something about dingoes."

"Riiiight, well other than the thought that Cordelia has a boyfriend that isn't a footballer dogging me I have to go to work now. Catch you all later?"

The girls waved goodbye to him and he took his leave of them, walking towards the stairs rather than the exit of the school. He had another form he really wanted to try that evening and if it worked, he would get to work in no time at all. He passed through the school without causing a ripple, as was his usual way, and headed up to the roof. After looking around and making sure no one could see him or would be able to see him, he put his backpack over his shoulders properly. Then he spread his arms and concentrated.

Unlike the other forms where he tended to grow, this time he shrank down quickly. The speed of the transformation ripped a scream from his throat for a moment. Then eldritch energies swept up around him causing a small dust devil to whip into shape and hid him from view. When it died down there was a raven-like bird sitting in his place. With a single flap of its wings it took to the air and was away, sweeping quickly over the town at a rate that was almost abnormal for a bird.

Once again, Xander thanked Jonno in his head. The short person had done a lot for Xander's character over the year he had been playing, giving him ore, leather and money when he needed it. His help had made it so that Xander had learned this form in double quick time. It was known in the game as Swift Flight Form. Xander was going to rename it adrenaline junky heaven. The ground was almost a blur beneath him as he sped through the skies of Sunnydale. The rush was amazing, not just from the flying, which was intense, but from the sheer speed he was going.

Xander made a vow with himself to do something nice for Jonno later in the week and angled himself towards his uncle's garage.

~#~

Jonathan Levinson looked down at his hands, an unreadable expression on his face. When he had decided to copy Xander's costume idea he had thought it would be fun in a geeky way. This was not so much fun as awe-inspiring. Floating a few inches above his hand was a large fireball, spitting and crackling with pure magical power.

All his life most people had treated him as a loser. They picked on him because he was smarter than they were, because he was much smaller, or because he sucked at sports. It was only the few friends he had that had stopped him going postal by that point already. Friends like Xander, while they were not as close as Xander and Willow, and who was, they were good friends and had been for a long time.

Therefore, while he had known Xander had his own plans Halloween night, Jonno had decided it would be cool to dress as his favourite character too. Then everything had been a bit of a blur, and he had woken up surrounded by dust and a few dead things that looked like they belonged in Star Wars. His robes, rented for the night from a costume shop called Ethan's, that seemed to have quite a few class costumes from World of Warcraft, had been covered in goo and he felt like there was pure power flooding through his every vein and synaptic pathway.

It had taken him a few days to realise that he still had the power and the ability to use it. He had experimented for a while and that led him to be standing in his bedroom with a fireball resting in his hand.

He shook his head, dissipated the fireball with a negligent thought, walked to the mirror, and looked into it. He took a step back when he noticed that his eyes were actually glowing slightly with power and then a cautious step forward.

"This is fricken' cool."

~#~

"Oooh"

Spike looked at his dark haired beauty of a paramour with worry. She had been making odd noises every so often since they had escaped the insane mage Halloween night. He had known he should not have gone out that night, but she had told him the Slayer would be weak. The trouble was he hadn't got anywhere near the girl before some bloke in a dress had started to wipe out his minions going on about The Lich Kings servants and the Scourge and a lot of other crap that Spike didn't care to hear about. Especially since the bastard had been virtually unstoppable. He had lost many good minions that night and had been using the time since to restock his numbers. In truth, he would like to turn that mage for his own use. The sheer brute force power he had been using was intoxicating to demon and, frankly, he had never in his long life seen a display like it. Fire and bolts of white energy had decimated his ranks in mere moments, and the sheer sizzling presence of the guy had been intoxicating.

"Oooh, the kitten has grown into a nasty cat with big claws. The little loser into a mage and the cheerleader has found her goddess. Others from the night are coming awake, all the time drawing together for a party."

Spike half frowned, "What luv? What was that?" he got the mage bit, because the guy had been on the short side, but the rest made no sense at all to him.

"Puff goes the dragon, and the world turns to fire."

Spike blinked, and decided that it was likely that Dru was off on one of her rants rather than an actual bit of seer work going on.

"The Slayer doubles and dances with darkness," Dru said causing Spike to refocus on her suddenly. Perhaps he was mistaken after all. "Daddy comes home, and goes to bed."

Spike frowned, wondering what she was talking about. She was his sire and he loved her as much as his undead heart was able, but there were times where he was tempted to off her himself.

"The world turns to the Kitten, mage and goddess girl to find allies in the world, ready for the coming of the source." Dru told him seriously, her large eyes glowing with seriousness before she fainted backwards onto her bed and into a deep sleep.

Spike looked at her for a long moment, then shook his head and went back to what he was doing.


	2. Chapter 2

Shifting Heart Chapter 02

The Bronze was busy that night and the air was filled with teenage hormones rushing through the place like a fine wine. Xander stepped into the club and immediately looked around for his friends. He did not spot them at first, so he made his way to the bar. They did serve alcohol in the club, but only if you had ID. Not that Xander had been interested in drinking before the change, let alone now. He liked to keep his head on him at all times, even more so now his senses were so much sharper. He had to wonder if it was a side effect of the Cat, or the Bear, but he could feel, hear, see and taste much more than he had been able to before. It could be an Elf thing for all he knew though; it was not as if they went into that all that much in the game.

After ordering his normal Coke Xander meandered towards the dance floor, his eyes warily looking around him. He found that he had a sense of a person's health ever since Halloween. He suspected that this was not something to do with his particular class either, more that it was a more standard ability from the game and the magic making it real world. On the game, you could see an enemy's life going down and the magic had made it so that Xander could now pretty much do the same. It was not a physical reading as such, just a sense of a person's health. It was actually quite useful in a strange way because Vampires did not read as having any health at all. It was a misnomer of course because they did have 'health', just no life. Therefore it was of limited use, but it did make spotting vampires a piece of cake now. So far, he could not spot any of the undead bastards in his personal hang out, and he was fine with that. If anything, his hatred for all things vampire had actually increased since Halloween, something he had not thought possible previously.

He took a seat near the dance floor and settled in to wait. He glanced at his watch and noticed that he was a few minutes earlier than he had anticipated due to being able to fly straight over town. He smiled when he looked at his watch, gone was Mickey Mouse and in its place was an expensive looking watch he had taken from a vampire a few nights previously. He had not worn it before because he had been tinkering with it. His skills with engineering and just knowing how everything fit together had allowed him to become quite creative with gadgets. This struck him as odd. In the game there was such a thing as an Alchemy find, where a new recipe could be drawn from the ether while doing other things, but not in any other profession. Yet now he was making things he had not memorised a schematic for. Such as his much-changed watch, which was now approaching something James Bond would be glad to wear. With a host of little tricks inside it's titanium shell.

It was not the only thing that Xander had been working on either, other than making his own clothes; he had a host of little gadgets he was toying with. He was hoping to sell some of his designs via his uncle and make some money. It was nothing particularly earth shattering so far, but they were useful in everyday use and it was surprising how much money could be made from something like that. He was already working on getting patents for several of his designs, and once he had worked on lowering the cost of materials and making it easy to make, he was set to start finding a buyer.

To that end, he had some time off school already booked and a trip into LA to do some selling. While his uncle owned and ran a garage, he actually worked for a design company that had moved out of CRD and into a bigger premise. His uncle, while having odd hobbies, was somewhat of a clever man himself when it came to building things. Xander was therefore well placed to moving into the market himself. His uncle had already promised to talk to his boss about one of Xander's designs in particular which had some military uses. Not something Xander was very happy about, but the money would certainly help.

He took a sip of his coke when suddenly the hairs on the back of his neck rose. It was not a sense of danger though; it was more a sense of pure power that had just walked into his range of sense. Dark eyes cast over the crowds did not see a thing, so Xander stood up and walked quickly to the upper levels of the club. Looking down at the crowds, he was better able to see the lay of the land. He used that vantage point to find the source of the power he had sensed, and it nearly made him drop his coke.

"Jonno?" he whispered to himself. He put his coke down on a nearby table and quickly made his way to where a conflict was building between Jonno and a few jocks. It seemed from external view that they wanted to use the pool table, and Jonno was not giving it up this time.

Xander walked to the table and eyed the situation. He had been wrong; it was not that the source of power had just arrived, it had just notched up into full gear. It was definitely coming from Jonno though, and it was highly familiar to the human Druid.

"Just hand it over, Geek, we want to play and you're taking too long." The main and largest jock growled, his words sounding a little thick, as if he had been drinking before he had hit the club.

"No," Jonno said in a surprisingly firm and unwavering voice. He held the pool cue in a defensive position and, had the jock not been so stupid, and/or drunk, he would have noticed the competency that Jonno was showing with the long cue.

"Don't make me smash you," the jock snarled, raising a fist.

The potential for violence jumped up several notches and Xander stepped forward, inserting himself between the two jocks and Jonno. For once more for their protection than Jonno's. "I wouldn't if I were you. If I'm guessing correctly here, I would say he knows how to wield that cue pretty well." Xander said in a calm voice.

"Don't you be getting in my face, Harris," the jock grumbled, looking a little more wary now. Xander had a bit of a rep for not backing down and being able to stand up to even the biggest footballer.

"Trust me, Frank, you don't want to do this." Xander said reasonably.

"It's just Levinson," Frank said derisively.

Jonno's back went up at that and he stepped forward, "Just get lost, Frank, I'm not giving up the table. I've got a few dollars left on the side of the table and I am playing this with my friend."

The jock looked around, "What friend," he said with a nasty smile.

Jonno looked around and growled slightly, seeing that his friend had run off apparently at the first sign of trouble. "Damn it," he muttered.

"Me," Xander said his tone brooking no argument.

Frank glared at the two of them but apparently decided it just was not worth his time, and walked off, shoving people out of his way as he went.

After a few tense moments Xander turned back to look at Jonno and lifted an eyebrow at the smaller man. "Seems that you and I need to talk."

Jonno smiled slightly and nodded, "Yeah - guess we do Xan."

~#~

The girl looked down in shock at what she had just wrought. All because some freak faced bastard had crept up on her. Added to the freaky dreams she had been having lately, this was just too much for her. She was not used to this sort of thing. She breezed through life without having to think too much. Schoolwork came to her about as easily as it did other people and, other than the fact she was one of the elite of her social ladder she would, in fact, be average. It was the way she looked though that had ensured her status in the social elite. That and the way she dressed was more thanks to her daddy being a rich industrialist. Her mom worked in fashion as well so that did not hurt her in any aspect of her life. She was quite hoping to follow her mother's footsteps, but had a slight problem of not being able to design a damn thing herself. She was aware of colours of course, and how to mix and match clothing for the ultimate look, but anything else was beyond her.

Now this.

Dust was floating all around her and it was all too much. So she sank slowly back against the wall, and down it hugging her knees and letting tears flow from her eyes and down her sculpted cheeks.

This was not her bag at all, the freaky stuff was for that looser Tuffy, or was it Muffy. No, it was Buffy, Buffy Summers was her name. All sorts of freaky shit happened around her, and her looser friends. Like that Rosenberg bitch or Harris who liked to verbally spar with his betters. She had to admit she quite admired that about him, not that she would tell a soul of course. He was not half bad looking either, which is more than could be said for his looser friend that ha disappeared a year or two ago. She sometimes wondered why eh hung with the looser squad. Until she had heard Aura talking about him and how he had scared off some freaky faced people. Apparently, he was up to his neck in the freakishness as well.

She had known him virtually her entire life. Unlike Summers, and it wasn't like she could talk to Rosenberg, away from her protector she seemed meek but in fact she was as nasty as they came. Jacky a friend of hers from school had been chased out of town by cops because of the redhead. She suspected that she was a hacker or something, but nothing had ever been proven when it came to that. Harris though would suspect her of that she was sure, but she had to talk to someone and it was not as if she could talk to any of her friends. Likewise, she could not risk any of her friends talking to the looser either. It would raise too many questions as to why she was doing it. Perhaps tip her off the higher rungs of the social ladder if she was not careful.

She did not much like that idea at all.

Therefore, she would have to be careful, but it was doable, maybe he could shed some light on what was happening to her.

She used the back of her hand to wipe away a few tears, and her back straightened. Luminous eyes looked around the devastation she had created and a slightly nasty smile appeared on her face. It served the freaks right for trying to hurt her. One of them had mentioned using her before killing her. She was well within her rights to protect herself wasn't she?

She stood up and set her shoulders, this was going to be sorted out and it was going to be solved as soon as she could possible do it. She just had to fix her makeup and then she could head over to the Bronze where no doubt Harris would be hanging with his looser friends. Then all she had to do was get him away from them and somewhere private to talk, all without being seen.

Her shoulders slumped slightly; her life was not suddenly complicated at all, NOT!

~#~

"Halloween night?" Xander asked as Jonno and he played pool. While the club was hopping around them, Xander knew damn well no one would care to listen to two 'losers' talking over a game of pool. He potted his ball without really thinking about it. Aim had become important over the years of his other life, so the game was quite simple really.

"Yeah," Jonno said with a slight sigh and then beamed. "Its frickin' cool though."

Xander smiled slightly and nodded, "It is, but it's dangerous too."

Jonno nodded in agreement, "I've got a handle on it though."

"Have you? I could feel the power you were pumping out from clear across the club."

"Yeah well, he annoyed me."

"Frank has that habit, but it wasn't important. It's only a pool game."

"It is important!" Jonno snapped back. "I'm fed up of taking all the crap from those bastards."

"Hey now, cool your jets Jonno." Xander said, his tone neutral but eyes worried. "They're just Jocks. It is what they do. We're better than them by miles."

Jonno nodded again, "Especially now."

"Power doesn't make us better Jonno, it's the way we treat people that makes us better. They think power and privilege makes them better than us, but in reality it s the way you treat your fellow man that's important."

"Yeah, yeah - maybe."

Xander cocked an eyebrow at the other man and looked at him steadily, "Went as your mage huh?"

Jonno smiled again, this time much wider, "Oh yeah."

"Nice. So tell me Jonno, you ever wondered why this town is the way it is?"

"Often, and the other night I think I found out why. But I think I might be going crazy because surely Vampires and Demons don't really exist - do they?"

Xander nodded with a serious expression, "They sure do man."

"Shit," Jonno cussed under his breath.

"My thoughts exactly when I found out. As you now know, magic exists too. We all got changed into our costumes and for some of us - it's stuck around."

"You went as Malufurian didn't you?"

Xander nodded with a slight smile.

"Wicked," Jonno said with a smile. "So, now what though, I mean I have all this power but what do I do with it?"

"If you want you could help us. Fight the good fight; beat back the forces of darkness and that stuff."

Jonno smiled, "Yeah - I might enjoy that I think. Like being a super hero or something."

Xander cast him an odd look but then shrugged it off. Each to their own he supposed. "Something like that. I have been fighting them for a while now though. But I haven't told the others about the - urh - changes I've been going through."

"Shit, I just realised - can you shift?" Jonno asked suddenly, almost ignoring what Xander had said before. Only the word changes had made him think of the various Druidic abilities that Xander may now have.

It was Xander's turn to beam, "Oh yeah."

"Wicked!"

"What have you tried so far?"

"Simple spells, fireballs, ice, some AOE out in the woods. I can conjure food and water, gems as well."

"Hearthstone?" Xander asked.

In answer Jonno reached into his pocket and pulled out an elliptical white stone with a blue rune on it, "You?"

"I have it too," Xander, said getting his from his pocket, "Not used it though."

"Nor me, I was scared I'd end up in Dalaran and not be able to get back."

"Same as man, same as."

"Think we should try them?"

Xander shook his head, "Not yet at least. Tried any portals yet?"

"Yeah actually, it's weird though, it doesn't work like the game. I seem to be able to create one to wherever I want."

"I think that's the magic making things more real world for us. Can you sense everyone around? How healthy they are I mean?"

Jonno nodded, "Yeah - that freaked me out when I realised what it was."

"Me too, but like I said it's the magic making things work here on earth. We're not in Azeroth anymore Toto." He said the last with a twisted smile.

Jonno barked a short laugh, "True. So you didn't tell your other friends then?"

"Not yet, but I will. Just don't know how to bring it up yet?" he said the last as a question to see if Jonno had any ideas on the matter.

Jonno shook his head with a shrug, "No idea on that one Xan, but if you want back up "

"Thanks man. For now I'd say lay low until I tell the gang, and then I'll introduce you into the mix ok?"

"That's fine by me. There's some stuff I want to practice anyway." Jonno paused, "Have you tried calling your mount yet?"

Xander shook his head looking surprised, "Hadn't even thought of it."

"We should try that, I think the flying might work here."

"Yeah it would." Xander said with a smile.

"Got your flight form?"

"Yep." Xander said with an excited expression, "Hell of a rush it is too."

"Wicked cool. I'll give it a go over the weekend, you should too." Jonno said with a grin, being able to use one of his many mounts would be cool, but being able to use any one of them would be better. If things worked out, he had one hell of a cool mount that he could use to get around.

"We should try calling a companion first, if that works then the mount should." Xander said thoughtfully.

"Good idea man, and hey - thanks for the game."

"No probs Jonno, let me know how you do ok? I just saw Buffy walk in with Willow and I better go say hi."

"No worries man, take it easy."

Authors Note Insertion:

I hate inserting author's notes all over the place but I felt I needed to mention a few things here.

The story is moving a lot slower than I was expecting as there is a lot to get in place before the action can really get going. So I hope you'll bear with me. I could make the chapters bigger if necessary but I like to keep things at a set word count it helps me plan out chapters. Also it's getting away from me slightly, but I have to admit I'm having so much fun writing it I don't mind that so much.

Another thing is that the 'Main Characters' of Buffy aren't being used a lot at the moment, but I have to introduce the characters that will make the biggest impact and as most of them weren't explored fully in the series I have to do that here to a certain extent. Never fear though the 'Main Characters' will be back though and in their rightful places.

A little note about classes etc here. You can look up the classes used on the Wow Wiki.

.com/Portal:Main

steals links so if you can't see the link Google "Wow Wiki" and you should find it easily enough. I'm using Druid, Mage and Priest so far. I expect perhaps a Hunter to turn up as well, and maybe even a Paladin, though I am not decided on that yet. Still if they do you know what to look up, if you so wish.

Another note on professions, namely engineering. I've taken liberties with just what exactly you can do with that profession and I'm brushing over the details a fair bit, but some of the devices mentioned either exist or are extrapolated from ones that do. Again I'm trying to real world a game here so forgive me any glaring cock ups and let me have some poetic licence, LOL.

Lastly I would like to thank everyone that has reviewed so far, it gives me a warm fuzzy to get reviews and I thank you for that from the bottom of my heart.

Oh, and please forgive me this amazingly long authors note section. 


	3. Chapter 3

Shifting Heart Chapter 03

"There he is," Willow said with a smile lighting up her face as she spotted her crush and long time friend across the club.

Buffy turned to where Willow was pointing and waved her male friend over. Then she went back to trying to spot Angel in the crowds.

"Hey ladies. Looking lovely tonight," Xander said as he walked up to them.

Willow blushed while Buffy just took it in her stride her only reply was to cast an eye up and down Xander and smile before saying, "Not so bad yourself Xan More leather I see. Trying to copy Angel's fashion sense?"

Xander snorted a laugh and shook his head, "Do you see any silk?" he asked. Can I get you ladies a drink?" he asked to head off any possible reply from Buffy.

"Just a soda," Willow said with a smile. "You must be feeling flush?"

"Yeah, not doing badly at the moment. Got my first pay check yesterday." Xander said and then moved off into the crowds and towards the bar.

Willow turned to Buffy. "How much can he earn in an after-school job?" she asked curiously.

Buffy shrugged, more interested in finding Angel than in anything Xander was earning. However, she was happy for him. He was obviously doing well for himself, and as far as she was concerned, he deserved a little good in his life. Now if she could just hook him up with Willow, who she was sure would be perfect for him, then she figured the group dynamic would be perfect.

Willow looked at Buffy with a slight smile, "See him yet?" she said, knowing that Buffy would not really concentrate on anything she was saying until they found Angel.

"Not yet" Buffy admitted. "Oh wait," she said suddenly and moved off into the crowds, cutting through them like a knife through butter.

"Oh don't worry about me, I'll be fine," Willow huffed to herself, and then smiled as a Soda was pressed into her hand from the side. Xander had obviously come back a different way than he had left. "Thanks Xander," she said and turned to him.

"Not a problem for you, Wills," Xander said, and then followed Buffy's progress with his eyes, giving them a roll when he saw her final destination. In many ways, he was over his crush on Buffy now. The lifetime crammed in his head had allowed him to see that their differences would mean they would most likely make either a horrible couple, or - oddly enough - a very good one. He admired her still and not just for her looks, but also for her spirit and determination. That said, and perhaps it was Malufurian coloring his thoughts, but her relationship with Angel sickened him somewhat. He tried to remember that he had a soul, that he was one of the good guys. However, all he really saw when he looked at the guy was a vampire. It was to his mind Buffy's job to slay such creatures, not make google eyes at them.

Still, in the end, it was her life and her decision. This is one of the things Malufurian's experience had taught him. It was not up to him to make her decisions for her; it was all down to her. He had his own life to worry about after all. This brought him to Willow, who was smiling at him in a quite fetching way. He was tempted to take up the invitation inherent in that smile he really was. He was also terrified of doing so. Willow's friendship over the years had meant so much to him he could not even begin to describe it. To his mind they were soul mates; he just was not sure that would translate well into a relationship. He did find her physically attractive. It was hard not to, she was a beautiful young woman now. However, there were aspects of her personality he was not sure he would cope well with within a relationship.

"What are you thinking?" Willow asked, a little self-conscious as Xander had been staring at her for a few minutes.

Xander smiled at her, "Us, old times and how very important you are to me."

Willow blushed but smiled widely, perhaps this was the sign she had been looking for.

"I can't imagine a world in which you and I aren't friends. That would destroy me I think," Xander said carefully.

Willow half frowned. Perhaps this was not going in the direction she had hoped after all.

"Sometimes I think if it wasn't for you I'd have gone postal years ago. You have my soul Wills. I just wanted you to know that."

Willow blinked back sudden tears. His tone was impossibly soft and caring and it just tore at her heart. "I " she began but Xander reached out and laid a finger on her lips.

"Let me finish Wills," Xander told her, "Many nights when things got too much I was able to come to you and hide away, and you'd hug me and tell me it was all going to be OK and that saved me Wills. I don't want to do anything to destroy our relationship. I want us to be 'Willow and Xander' for the rest of time."

Willow nodded, tears in her eyes. She knew where this was going now. Apparently her best male friend in the world was not as clueless as she had thought, and this, unless she was mistaken, was him letting her down *very* gently.

"Is that okay?" Xander asked softly, his eyes suspiciously bright.

Willow paused for a moment before nodding, her shoulders a little slumped. Then Xander pulled her in for a big hug and kissed her hair, whispering sweet nothings into her red tresses to calm her down. Something he had done on many occasions, Willow realized, and suddenly she did not want to lose that either. Xander had just told her he loved her, which is something she had wanted to hear for a long time. Of course, it was not meant the way she had hoped, but the fact was she loved him too, perhaps just as much in the way he did her. A relationship, to her mind, would be wonderful. However, what if? That was the question of the day. What if it all went wrong. They might not be Willow and Xander anymore, and that thought made her want to hide in a hole until it went away.

No, perhaps it was better this way.

Buffy walked up, towing Angel by the hand, and looked at the two of them with worry in her eyes. Seeing Willow crying she reached out a hand and placed it on Willow's shoulder.,

Willow half turned, and cleared her tears away, "I'm okay," she said and found she really was. She was okay, which was strange because she was sure she would have been crushed if Xander had rejected her, but then he had not, he had merely redirected her instead.

Buffy glared at Xander for a moment, but it failed to have any effect on him, which was new. "What did you say?"

"That's between us." Xander said seriously, still hugging Willow.

"It's alright Buffy, it's nothing bad. In fact it's kind of wonderful. We're going to be Willow and Xander forever, and we've decided that being friends is the best thing in the world." Willow said carefully, looking Buffy in the eye and begging her to get the idea.

"Oh," Buffy said sounding disappointed; then she smiled, "As long as you're happy I suppose."

Meanwhile Xander's and Angels eyes had met. "Xander," Angel intoned with a deep voice.

"Vampire," Xander replied mildly, only to yelp when Buffy darted around Willow to slap him on the arm.

"Enough of that you two. Who knew that a vampire had testosterone to throw into a pissing contest." Buffy said, with a glare at her boyfriend. Then she turned on Xander who was smirking, "And as for you. Cut it out, he's my boyfriend; get used to it. You want me to be happy don't you? Well he makes me happy." She said leaving no wriggle room. Now Angel was actually smiling.

"Sure," Xander said carefully. "For as long as that lasts, I am happy for you."

Buffy narrowed her eyes at the tall teen, and then realised that whilst Xander had always been taller than her, he was now actually taller than Angel. Then she shook it off as unimportant. "Glad to hear it," she said eventually, not wanting to get into a full-scale fight right at the moment. She wanted to decompress from school, then go out and slay some vampires. Simple needs perhaps, but it was her life. A full-scale argument would just ruin that for her and she did not want that.

Xander flashed a smile, "Anyway, can I get either of you a drink. A soda, B negative? Anything?"

"Soda, thanks," Angel said after a slight glare. He realised that in his way Xander was trying to be nice, he was just unable to do it without being a smartass in the process. It was just Xander's way in fact. It was also up to him to be the adult. To Angel's reasoning, he had a couple of centuries on Xander. He could be the bigger man here, despite the fact it was actually fun to spar with the young man. Not that he would admit that in a thousand years. In addition, he did not get the jealous vibe off Xander anymore, nor did he seem intimated by Angel. He could not put a finger on why, but it was almost as if Xander now thought he could deal with Angel if push came to shove. That interested Angel, he had to admit, and since he was no longer competing for Buffy's 'fair hand', in truth Angel did not actually have a problem with Xander. They had issues to work out, which either they would or they would not. It didn't much matter to Angel really, though it would be good for the group if they got along. Therefore, he ignored the jibe and took the olive branch.

Xander nodded and looked to a slightly steaming Buffy, "Buff?"

"Coke," she said, carefully neutral. If Angel was not going to make a scene out of the quip nor was she.

Xander once again braved the crowds, leaving Willow with Buffy and Angel. "So - you're okay?" Buffy said carefully.

Willow smiled a smile that lit up the area and nodded, "I actually am." She said sounding almost surprised. "Now I can move on." She added with a grin and looking around as if to find a prospective boyfriend.

"Well, this time steer clear of any soulless vampires." Buffy said jokingly.

Willow laughed slightly. "That did put me off the idea for a while, I'll admit. But surely I can't get caught twice."

There was a moment of silence and then Buffy said, "Just in case. I will look them over, OK?"

Willow nodded, with a slightly worried look on her face.

Angel turned away to cover the smirk on his face and then back as Xander reappeared with their drinks. "Here," he said with a slight smile, and passed around the drinks as he had gotten another for Willow and himself. "Wellllll, this is nice." He said, then half frowned when he spotted someone, an unwelcome someone at that, trying to get his attention from across the club. It was very low key, but there was no mistaking it. They wanted to talk to him and, apparently, did not want anyone to know about it. 'Weird, what does she want' Xander thought to himself.

"Thanks for the drink," Angel said, causing Buffy and Willow to also thank the dark haired teen.

"Not a problem, got to share the wealth huh? Anyway, got to - urh visit the mens room. Be right back." He said in a distracted way.

Willow watched him go with a half frown, and then turned back to Buffy, "That was weird; he hadn't even touched his coke."

Buffy shrugged, "So - Patrol tonight?"

~#~

Xander cut through the club easily, the crowd moving out of the way of the new predator in their midst. It was not a conscious thing with Xander, but since finding his forms he had a way about him that made him stand out. He made his way quickly to the strange request and the even stranger requester and stood before them in double time.

They motioned for him to follow them and led him out of the club's back entrance and into an alleyway. Then they turned to him and made a shushing motion as Xander opened his mouth to speak. They darted a nervous look around them and then seemed to relax slightly.

"Harris," they said.

Xander frowned, "What do you want Harmony, and what's with the cloak and dagger routine?"

"I don't want anyone to see us talking," Harmony Kendall said with brutal honesty.

"Well that's easily sorted, I'll leave." Xander said turning to do just that.

"No! Please, wait and hear me out." Harmony reached out and held Xander's elbow.

Xander turned back and glared at the hand until she removed it, and then let out a sigh. "What's this about Harm? It's not like you to want to talk to me."

"I know, but you're the only one I can think of to help me out."

"Help you out? Why would I do that?"

"Please you're hip deep into all the freaky shit that happens in this town, and you know it. I need your help here. Would you refuse a request for help?"

Xander was about to say that indeed he would, when he noticed her eyes. There was no scornful look and a hint of actual intelligence looking out from her baby blues. Not something he expected to see if he were brutally frank. She had always been the school ditz and boy, did she play her part well. "Alright, I'm listening."

"It all started on Halloween," she began, and Xander tensed. Apparently, he and Jonno were not the only ones having a problem with repercussions from that night.

"What did you go as?"

"I don't know; kind of a fantasy thing. It was the only costume left in that new shop , and I thought I would look hot in it, so I got it. But I don't know what it was supposed to be."

Xander let out another sigh, "Oh boy. Alright, what can you do now?"

"Give me your hand." Harmony told him, her eyes serious as she pulled out a small flick knife from her bag.

"You've got to be kidding me."

"Please, just - trust me."

Xander was about to tell her to go to hell, when he caught her expression again. Despite his better instincts, he held out his hand and let her cut his palm. It hurt, but he had suffered much worse over the years, and certainly worse in Malufurian's lifetime.

"Ready?" Harmony said, her voice wavering slightly.

"I'm bleeding on my new pants."

Harmony nodded to herself, lightly bit a lip, and placed a hand over his palm. Warmth flooded from her hand and spread up his arm, and an almost holy glow spread halfway up his arm. Then the warmth and the glow disappeared, and Harmony stepped back.

Xander looked at his hand and ran a finger over where the cut had been. There was not even a mark left and, other than a little blood, he seemed to be perfectly healed. "Right," he said with a frown. "Tell me, can you sense how kind of healthy people are?"

Harmony nodded, "And I can feel the power coming from you, now you mention it."

Xander nodded again, mostly to himself. This was a new wrinkle. Luckily, he knew the game pretty well and what sort of class could heal like that. She did not strike him as the paladin type, and besides he could not sense an aura coming from her. Using what looked to be holy powers, she just had to be a Priest. This was damn near funny, considering who he was looking at. This time, though, the wrinkle was that she had no idea what she was dealing with, and to his knowledge it was nominal at best, having only seen other priests in action during the odd raid and dungeon. The real insider knowledge was not available to him. Malufurian's massive amount of memories was not too helpful either. His healing abilities were linked to nature; not using 'The Light'. He also had not had much to do with the priests. Some dealings obviously, but it was the intimate knowledge he needed to help Harmony, and he just did not have it. Jonno would be no help either. He was a mage, and had a rogue. Not germane to being a priest in the least. He had to help her though; otherwise she could end up hurting someone. He was well aware that Priests could do some serious damage. The thought of the cheerleader having that sort of power was more than a little worrying.

"Well?" Harmony demanded, when he had not said anything in a long while.

"I can help, maybe. I'm willing at least, but it's going to take some work. You need to learn control."

"You're telling me! I wiped out a bunch of freaks earlier, and I don't even know how I did it."

Xander pursed his lips in thought. Holy power would be deadly to vamps, and from the freaks' comment it was likely she had come across vampires, especially in Sunnydale. "I hate to tell you this, but you need to come with me."

"What?"

"Unless you want to explode when you least expect it, or maybe hurt a friend or loved one because you do something without thinking about it. Just to make your life a little more interesting, I also need to take you to a fellow nerd's house as well. Get a handle on your abilities. I know the costume you wore I think, and we need to do some research, and he's the one with the means to do that."

"Who?"

"Jonno," Xander replied.

"Oh God, not him." Harmony despaired.

"Cut that out for a start unless you want to do this alone. You came to me for a reason, and I can help, but I won't if you keep that shit up."

Harmony pouted and stomped her foot in anger. It was a fascinating thing to watch because she was very well made. It made Xander wonder how she had looked in her costume since the costumes themselves had been tier sets. "Fine!"

Xander nodded, "I have to say goodbye to my friends."

"Why?"

"Because I'm not rude," Xander said with an eye roll, and walked off to do as he had said. 


	4. Chapter 4

Shifting Heart Chapter 04

"Huh," was Jonno's intelligent comment as he opened his door and looked at his visitors. He knew why Xander would visit him but Harmony Kendall - that one totally eluded him.

"Out of the way Nerd," Harmony said, pushing past the short man into the house proper; mostly to get off the street so no one saw her.

"Hey!" Xander snapped, "Remember what I said."

Harmony seethed for a moment before subsiding, "Sorry," she mumbled.

Jonno blinked at her and then turned to Xander, "What the hell?" Then he smirked, "New girlfriend Xan?"

"Oh ha, ha," Xander commented as he walked in the open doorway.

"As if," Harmony said in a low tone.

"Okay then, why is she here; not that I'm over joyed to see her, but Jock and Cheerleaders not my favourite people."

Xander smirked, "Nor mine, but it turns out there may be more fallout from Halloween than I thought."

Jonno looked at the beautiful blonde and smirked. "Her? What did she go as, a cheerleader and low and behold " he trailed off his sarcasm clear.

"Why you little "

"Quit it, both of you. The fact of the matter is, Jonno, that she took the last costume at Ethan's and didn't know what it was."

Jonno wiped a hand down his face, "What was it?"

"My guess - Priest."

Jonno snorted a laugh, "Oh God, that's rich. Has the light deserted her already or is it waiting?"

Xander covered a grin, "Best I can tell, she's got a full measure still."

"Scary thought. Shadow abilities?"

"No idea; that's what we need to find out. She obviously has not played the game, so she has no idea what she can do. Best I can tell, what she can do is trial and error stuff, and when she really needs it, like when she was attacked earlier."

Jonno looked at Harmony with some concern, "You okay?"

Harmony blinked back a little surprise and then snapped, "Yes, and hey, I'm right here. Don't talk about me like I'm not."

Jonno shrugged. "Priest huh? Don't know a lot about them, used to have one only got them to about 20 before I deleted it, though."

"Ahh, that's better than nothing at least." Xander said with a smile, "I figure we hit some of the sites and do some research. Figure out how to do the spells in real life. She can heal already though."

"You can?" Jonno said to Harmony in surprise.

Harmony smiled a slightly nasty smile and pulled out her flick knife, "Want a demo?"

"I'll pass." Jonno, said taking a step back, "Best come up to my room. Got the PC in there as you know Xan. Erh - want a coke or something?"

Harmony sniffed and folded her arms over her shapely chest.

"Right, well this way then." Jonno said leading them up the stairs.

~#~

Several hours later Xander tossed down one of Jonno's books and looked at Harmony then at Jonno himself. "So what have we learned?"

"She's got the potential to be very powerful and quite the healer." Jonno said thoughtfully. "That could help with what we were talking about earlier."

"What? What were you talking about earlier?" Harmony said. Her ice had thawed somewhat, and she was being less of a snotty bitch to the two geeks. After all, she realised that they were actually going out of their way to help her. It was what she had hoped. Especially as she had not been very nice to the short person over the years. Then again, she had been worse to Xander.

"I don't know if she'll be interested in that Jonno," Xander said carefully, "So I wouldn't worry about it right now Harm."

"Can you *not* call me that, especially in public?"

Xander smirked at her, but otherwise did not comment.

"Ability wise, you have quite a few to sort through; I'm not sure how we'll teach you though, Harmony."

"I figure she's already got healing abilities, some destructive ones. "Xander trailed off and then suddenly jumped at Harmony. She yelped and threw up her hands, wincing as if expecting a physical attack. Xander bounced off the shield that popped up around her; a shimmering bubble of holy light that deflected him off onto the floor. "Shield too." Jonno commented wryly.

"I figured as much since she didn't have a scratch on her after being attacked earlier," Xander said as he got up. "It's okay Harm, open your eyes."

Harmony did as he asked, and looked with wonder at the bubble that surrounded her. "Wow" she whispered. "This game of yours is sounding more interesting all the time." .

"Sounds like you're coming around to our way of thinking. Beware of the geek side, Harm, because it is a tempting and seductive force." Xander commented wryly.

Harmony flushed and then glared at him. "As if." she drawled in her best Cordelia imitation. Xander smiled slightly.

"That demonstrates that you can do it even if you're not thinking about it. So you need to learn what all the abilities are, and what they do, and then try to do it consciously." Jonno said, his mind whirring along at high speed.

"How?"

"We'll meet up after school tomorrow and try some stuff out. I have somewhere I go to practice." Jonno told her.

"Is it private?"

"Very."

"Good. I don't want to be seen hanging with either of you."

"Charming." Jonno commented with a smirk.

"Count me out for that. I'm meeting with my uncle about one of my tinkering tomorrow."

"Oh?" Jonno asked.

"I meant to talk to you about that actually. We're not limited to two professions now you know."

"Oh." Jonno said, then smiled. "No that's a limit of the game. Hey, does that mean I could tailor now?"

"I expect so. I can leatherwork." Xander said with a wave at his clothing.

Harmony looked at him in shock. "You MADE that?"

"Yep." Xander replied.

"Can you make me a top like that, only female?" Harmony asked after a moments thought. "I'd look totally hot in leather."

"Definitely." Jonno said, blushing.

Harmony smirked at him, and then turned to Xander with a smile, "Please?"

"Fine, but you realise priests only wear cloth?"

"And?" Jonno asked, motioning to his belt. "I'm wearing leather right now. I don't think it matters anymore."

"Huh," Xander said thoughtfully. "Interesting."

"Talking of limitations," Jonno said slowly, grinning widely. "Thought about talent trees?"

"What of them?"

"Well, you can only have two and that's with duel spec, but we're not limited to that anymore. In truth we should be able to do anything."

"I don't see any trainers around, Jonno." Xander said.

"So? Why not try one of the other forms from the other trees. I bet you can do it. After all, your character was balance for a while and Restoration."

"Shit, that'd be seriously cool. It would also mean you could do serious damage with any of your spell types."

Jonno nodded, "I'll try it out tomorrow. Since Harmony doesn't have the preconceptions we do, she should try stuff from shadow as well as holy; maybe some discipline too."

"What?"

"The trees you were just reading about Harm." Xander said rolling his eyes.

"Like I was taking notice." She commented with an airy wave of her hand.

"I know it's geeky," said Jonno "but you need to know your own limitations and just what you can do now. That way you're safer in using it, and can make the best use of it all."

"I'm not sure I want to yet." Harmony admitted. "I mean, it's not going to help in the fashion business."

"I think we're beyond that now, Harm," Xander said carefully.

Harmony pouted thoughtfully. "Then what do I do?"

Jonno and Xander shared a look, but it was Xander who spoke. "Don't worry about it too much right now, Harm. For now, just learn control and how to use what you have. If things work out, then maybe we can come up with something."

Harmony nodded, looking uncharacteristically bashful. "Thank you." she said after a long moment. "For everything."

Xander and Jonno smiled at her. "No problem," they said almost at the same time.

~#~

The newly christened RDC had been CRD before they had moved premises after some legal problems with their name and permits. That was all sorted now and they were one of the leading small businesses in the area. Their Research and Development business plan was among the best in the country; their talent matching many of the larger companies in America. What they lacked, though, was a killer product.

Rory Harris, uncle to Xander, turned the small device in his hand repeatedly looking at it from every angle. Essentially, it was almost sci fi; a field projector that could sustain a solid holographic field for a set amount of time. It had some kinks to work out, but if he was right, then he was looking at the future of the company. Despite his eccentricities, he was one of the company leaders, and his entire future was invested in making sure that it succeeded. That said, he was not sure if he should follow through with the device, and in particular how they should proceed. It had military applications for sure. It stood up to small arms fire so far, and even some of the larger calibre fire they had managed to shoot at it. It could be used in other areas as well, perhaps even medically if they could make the power source smaller.

The thing of it was he still was not sure *why* it worked. Only his nephew really understood that, and had explained it to his uncle freely as well. This made Rory wonder what had happened to his charming but not too bright nephew to turn him into a brilliant inventor. The field generator was not the only thing he had come up with either. Most of it was quite mundane and not to the standard of the field generator, but the young man now seemed to have a knack for engineering that made no sense to Rory.

From his research Rory was now certain that it was uniquely Xander's design and was not stolen, as best Rory could tell. Xander had gladly signed documentation to make sure of that fact. The other projects in the area were light years behind what Xander had designed. Their power sources huge, and projectors equally massive. What Rory had in his hand was the size of a matchbox at most.

He put it down on his desk with a sigh. There was nothing for it, the Board had voted and it was decided. They were going to buy the rights from Xander and, to that end, his nephew was due to arrive at Rory's office in a few minutes. If it were up to him, he would spend more time talking it over with Xander.

He had a responsibility there after all and advice he should give, but then, as the Board had reminded him, he had one to them as well. That said, he had brokered a damn good deal for the lad with continued royalties should they end up mass-producing the generator. Rory was almost certain they would if they got a military contract, even though they currently did not have the resources to make anything other than test runs of designs.

The Board had a somewhat dangerous plan for expansion, and it all hinged on the little generator now on his desk. He tapped a finger against it, and marveled at the design and construction of the thing. He wondered how Xander had learned to made such good quality work, without him knowing. He obviously kept an eye on the young man; after all, his own parents did not seem to care. He read his school report cards and a host of other duties that were not really his to undertake. Shop class, while good, was not Xander's strong point until the last month or so.

It was quite possible that Xander was a prodigy who had not realised his potential before, and that worried Rory a little because how had he missed it?

A buzz from his intercom broke through his thoughts and caused him to start slightly and then reach out and key it into action, "Yes, Faye?"

"Your nephew is here." Faye said, her melodious voice holding a tinge of amusement. Likely caused by Xander, who always flirted shamelessly with the 25-year-old blond secretary.

"Send him in please Faye." Rory said, straightening his jacket and pulling a file from his drawer. A few moments later Xander walked into his office to the sound of Faye laughing, causing Rory himself to smile.

"Hey Unc." Xander said jovially walking to the visitors, chair and sitting down.

Rory waited for the door to swing to a close and then looked at his nephew. He had changed a little since he last saw him. He seemed taller and was wearing tailored leather. Rory knew his job at Rory's garage would not pay for this. He brushed that aside though and instead got to business. "Hey Xander. Looking good. I talked to the Board last week and they decided they want the plans to your device."

"Cool. What's in it for me, if you don't mind me asking."

"I got you a good deal. A lump sum up front with more if we go into production and start selling units."

"Sounds good, but how much are we talking here?"

Rory smiled; this was good news at least. "A lot Xan. We're talking three million up front with a 1% royalty on the unit itself."

Xander blinked several times in quick succession. "What?"

"You're my nephew; you thought I would let them skin you alive? There is a wrinkle though."

"What?"

"You're not quite eighteen yet Xander so anything we pay you would go through your parents "

"Shit."

"Quiet, unless -" Rory trailed off, battling with himself and then pulled out another file. "I had my lawyer draw this up."

Xander took the offered file and flicked it open. After a moment his eyes widened. "That's a big step."

"You could support yourself easily, and you know I'll help you get set up."

"I know, but they're my parents."

Rory frowned, "If only they acted like it this wouldn't be a problem. You know as well as I do that your father would spend it all on whores, and your mother would puke it down a sink. You would never see a dime. I managed to set things up so we can file this today, see a judge tomorrow and pass the money through to you the day after."

Xander sat back looking pale. What his uncle had said was true, but he would be emancipating himself. He would be alone in a sense, but then hadn't he always been, even around his parents. Rory had been more of a father to him than his own, and he was already saying he would help. If he did not do this, though, he would not see a dime, and Rory had the right of it there. Three Million US would disappear in a blink of an eye if he were not careful, and this made sure his parents did not steal it from him. It hit him then. He had to do this otherwise he would make his parents into thieves. They would do it in a heartbeat, and that hurt Xander more than he cared to think. "Shit, he summed up.

"I know Xan, but what are you going to do?" Rory said with a shrug.

"I'll do it. Where do I sign?"

Rory smiled and pointed to several places on the papers, "There, there and there. I'll take this for you and it'll all be other before the weeks' end."

"Phew." Xander said, "I feel kinda weird."

"I know Xan, I know. This is for the best, though, maybe it will force them to realise what they're doing to themselves?"

"That'd be good. Should I tell them?"

Rory shook his head. "I'll deal with them tonight, and get them to Court tomorrow. Take these," he said reaching into a draw and tossing a set of keys to Xander. "They are the keys to my apartment. Stay there tonight. I'm going to stick with Tony and Jessica and make sure they don't do something stupid."

"Thanks, Uncle Rory."

~#~

Sunnydale was coming up on one hundred years since it was hewn from the desert just outside of the then booming town of Los Angeles. Since that time, it had been built to accommodate people of all races, and that means all races. It was a haven for demonic kind as well as a nice place to bring up children, and the town Mayor was proud of that fact. He was sitting in his office even at that late hour, working through some paper work for the school board and smiled in contentment. He was over 100 years old already and had been working with a single-minded purpose. Tailoring the town to be the perfect home, and offering for the various demon lords that owned his now blackened soul. Not that you could tell that from looking at the man. Mayor Richard Wilkins had a pleasant face and a ready smile, and it was not until you looked deeply into the man's eyes that you realised anything was wrong. When you did though, you could see something inhuman looking back out at you. By then it was already too late, and you were lost forever.

For Richard Wilkins was not only dangerous, he was powerful and knowledgeable as well. He had sensed that a change was coming; ever since Halloween just over a month ago he had been on edge, or as on edge as he ever got. It was as if the town had shifted slightly away from the evil lair it truly was towards a more hopeful and light place. He could not pin down the feeling, though, and that bothered him more than he cared to admit.

Even with the Slayer in town, he had been hopeful that nothing would bother his upcoming ascension. That he would be able to ascend to his true form without any resistance after the Slayer had so handily dealt with the Master for him. Now he was not quite as certain.

He put down his documents, walked to his private cupboard, and opened it carefully. He knew he was not going to be disturbed at that time of night by anyone; even his faithful secretary had gone home for the night. Therefore he was able to pull out several heavy tomes from a secret compartment inside the cupboard of tricks.

He walked back to his desk and placed the tomes down with a soft thump and a waft of dust. He frowned, pulled out a handkerchief from his pocket, and swept away the dust. He did so abhor germs and dirt. Then he settled down and started to revise his plans slightly. At this point, he was still able to make some changes in his ascension, and perhaps he should. He was after all a cautious man and something was in the air and making him very cautious indeed.

To that end, he turned to the section on forms to ascend to and started to research what form would give him the best chance of success. Each form had its own requirements and he would need to start working on getting these sorted before the towns' centennial. 


	5. Chapter 5

**Shifting Heart**

**Chapter 05**

"Where have you been all week?" Willow asked, her tone a little annoyed as Xander walked into the library.

"Urh-" Xander began, looking a little shell-shocked. "That's a long story."

"One minute you're in the Bronze and then I don't see you for the rest of the week. I've been worried, buster, so you'd better spill!" Willow said walking up to him, prodding him in the chest and then hugging him tightly.

Xander ran a hand up and down her back and smiled, "Sorry, Wills, time has kinda got away from me this week."

"You've not even been in school!"

"I know, I know. As I said, I have been busy. *Really* busy."

"Doing what?"

Xander paused. How was he going to tell Willow everything that had happened. He realised that he could not tell her everything; at least not yet. She would not understand the Harmony situation in the least, and certainly would not understand that Xander had been spending most of his evenings helping to train her. Though she would get what had happened with his parents, but possibly not the fact he had invented a multi million-dollar device. It was a sticky situation and then some. At the end of the day, he had no wish to lie to his oldest and dearest friend. Therefore, he began to tell her carefully about his week.

At the end of his little speech Willow sat down heavily, "Wow." She said, looking at him carefully. "How do you feel. I mea, I know they weren't parents of the year but still -"

"I know, it's weird, and they didn't actually contest it or anything but still it feels weird. Then of course I had to find a place to live."

"I'm sure -"

Xander cut her off, "I can afford a place, but thanks for the offer."

"How?"

"How what?"

"How can you afford a place to live? An after school job can't make you that much surely? And these new clothes and stuff. I mean where's all the money coming from? You're not in trouble are you?"

Xander smirked. "No, I'm not in trouble, and actually I do alright at Uncle Rory's garage, but no it does not make enough to live on. Actually - " he paused wondering how to tell and then decided that he could tell her after all. He was sure she would understand. However, perhaps it was time to come clean about everything that had happened since Hallowe'en. Fortuitously Buffy and Giles appeared at that moment, meaning he had everyone he needed to tell in one place. "In fact, now would be a good time to tell you all a few things that have been going on with me." He said, gaining Buffy and Giles's attention.

"What's the matter?" Giles asked curiously.

Buffy just looked at him curiously, so Xander waved at the seats. "Take a seat. This is going to take some explaining" he said with a sigh. It was time he had to tell them; they were after all his friends, he just was not sure they were going to be happy for him or not.

"It all started on Hallowe'en "

~#~

The room became silent as Xander stopped talking, and everyone was looking at him as if he had grown a second head. He remained silent for a long moment and then frowned when it became clear that no one was going to say anything. "Guys?" he said pleadingly.

"Well, erm, that's very interesting. Why didn't you come forward before?" Giles asked for the rest of them.

Xander smiled slightly. He had been expecting Willow to ask that question, but either way it had to be answered. "That's actually simple. It started slowly at first, and then I wanted to make sure I had control before I brought it before you guys. Then last week I wanted to tell you but other things came up."

"What can you do?" Buffy asked.

"Quite a lot. A druid is a combo class in World of Warcraft. That means I can deal damage a few different ways and even heal people when the need arises. I can cast spells or use melee damage as well. In the game, I could also tank, but obviously that is not something that can be used in real life. Because people, even vampires, aren't as dumb as a computer controlled character."

"So you can kill Vampires?"

"In a few different ways." Xander replied with a smirk. "I found my spells are pretty good against vampires because they don't like natural things. This is why stakes work so well against them."

"Interesting, do you have all the skills of your - urm - character?" Giles asked.

"Skills, abilities and memories as well. Luckily I don't look like him though."

"Why's that a good thing?" Buffy asked.

Xander glanced at Willow, who was very quiet and looking a bit of worried, but answered Buffy anyway. "He's a Night Elf, big pointy ears, seven foot tall, and my character in particular was kind of purple with green hair."

Buffy snickered at the mental imagery, and Xander smirked at her. "You have grown a bit though," she said when the chuckles had subsided.

"A little, I'm about 6'4" ish at the moment, I'm hoping I don't get any taller though."

"That doesn't answer my earlier question though," Willow said, entering the conversation at last.

"I'm aware," Xander said with a smile at his oldest friend. "The characters in the game can have professions, a way of making things for their characters, or making gold, the currency in the game. My guy was a Leatherworker," he waved at his outfit, "and an engineer. Now somehow, and I think it was the magic of the night, this has been translated into a real world way of doing things. So while I can make just about anything now without a schematic, just by knowing how it all works and fits together. I cannot just hit something with a blacksmithing hammer and expect it to work. I have to use actual engineering equipment and calibrated measuring tools, and all that stuff. Luckily they're simply enough to use when you get the hang of it."

"Wait - You made that outfit?" Buffy asked.

Xander smirked, wondering if either Buffy or Harmony would like to know they were very similar in their reactions. He had to say he doubted it very much though. "I did, yeah, and again real world it took me about three hours to make and a load of materials, unlike slapping a few bits of leather together in thirty seconds, like the game. Plus, I also had to treat the leather, but that was messy and I don't want to talk about it."

"Can you make me something?" Buffy asked.

Once again, Xander had to smother a laugh at how very similar she and Harmony had reacted. Instead, since he did not trust his voice, he just nodded at her. She smiled widely at him and subsided to listen.

"Again, that doesn't really answer my question," Willow pressed.

"I'm getting there, Wills. Unlike the game, I can toy with ideas and create things that I do not have a schematic memorised for. One of these things I showed to my uncle Rory."

"Isn't he the one that worked at CRD?"

"And now at RDC. He's fairly high up there and took my invention to the Board of Directors. They liked it and bought it, with a kinda royalty deal as well. Upshot is, I made a cool three Million up front and a nice income later on when they go into production. My uncle reckons they're going to all become rich off of it, which means I will as well."

"Wow," Buffy said with a smile, "Nice going Xan."

"Yeah, what'd you create?" Willow asked, beaming at him, obviously happy at his turn in luck.

"I'd rather not say," Xander told them, "I will, but the truth is they made me sign a ton of non-disclosure documents. If you really want to know though " he trailed off, his meaning clear.

"That's cool. I'm just happy for you. So that's the main reason you emancipated yourself then?" Willow asked with a knowing look on her face. She was well aware of how his parents were and just what they would do if they got a hold of that much money.

Xander nodded and then added, "It was Uncle Rory's idea actually, but I think it's for the best. We are both hoping it brings them to their senses. I've already made sure their house is paid off, but I can't give them any money because they'd just drink it."

Buffy shared a glance with her mentor and father figure. They were not quite so knowledgeable about Xander's home life and were both now wishing they had been aware of it beforehand. It sounded as if Xander had not had it as easy as they had thought from his easygoing manner.

"So when is the party?" Willow asked, surprising Xander. He had expected that one from Buffy.

"Next week."

"Party?" Buffy asked, obviously not twigging.

"Moving in party. I have a new place over the other side of town, nice apartment with a workshop on the roof and numbered parking." Xander said proudly. "It wasn't easy to get, but surprisingly cheap."

"So, to sum up. You're living alone now, have plenty of money and can help out on patrol."

"That's not quite all of it G-Man," Xander said slowly.

"Go on." Buffy said nervously.

"I'm not the only one that was affected on Hallowe'en. I know of two others. One of whom is willing to help us out. The other, I'm not so sure about at the moment. They need more training, and frankly even when that's finished I'm not sure they'll be interested in helping out."

"Why wouldn't they?" Willow asked.

Xander smiled slightly. "They're not of the same mindset as us, Wills. They see this all as a pain in the butt, not a gift. Though they are being better about it all than I would have thought at first, and I've not killed them yet, which is a miracle all by itself."

"Who is it?"

"I can't tell you that, but the other one I can tell you. We have a mage to join us, and that's a *very* good thing. It's Jonno by the way."

"What's a mage in this context?" Giles asked.

"Powerful spell caster; they can nuke just about anything and have powerful AOE, that's Area of Effect spells. Those spells cover an area and cause destruction, and, let me tell you, that is a lot of destruction. Jonno has a good handle on things as well, and he's end game. Erh - that means he is powerful as all hell. It is hard to relate game stuff to real life though. Because normally, gear - the stuff you wear - would make a difference. He and I play though and we're finding differences all the time from the game to real life."

"He's willing to help?" Giles asked. "That's good news. What have you told him so far?"

"General stuff only. I have not told him about Buffy, or exactly what we do in here. I figured I would leave that up to you guys. He knows about the things that go bite in the night though. He killed a crap load of them on Hallowe'en night. Which is one of the reasons I think it's been fairly quiet around here lately."

"He must be the mage you heard about Buffy." Giles said, stroking his chin in thought.

"Might be,. He's been out a few times practicing. But then, so have I." Xander admitted.

"Cool" Buffy said. "It's always good to have more help. As long as you all do as you're told by head slayer, as in me." She said with a grin.

"We all bow before Duchess Buffy, slayer extraordinaire." Xander said with a mock bow in her direction. "Well, Jonno and I will, don't know about the other yet. It all depends on if I can get her to check her attitude at the door."

"Her?" Willow asked carefully.

Xander looked at her and then laughed, "Just NO, not a chance in hell."

Willow smiled. "I'm wondering who it is now with that reaction."

"You may find out soon, like I said, if I can train her. Jonno and I are working with her, but unlike Jonno and me, she has never played the game. She just caught the last costume in the store situation."

"So, how about tonight you show me what you can do?" Buffy said with a smile.

"That's a tempting offer," Xander smirked, causing Buffy to blush at her unintended double meaning. "However, I'm still moving in, so I'll have to pass."

"What about training then? You said you have melee abilities, so I take it you need to train those to keep them sharp." Giles put forth.

"Actually, not quite the way it works for me." Xander said with a smirk, then looked around. "I can show you if you like. As long as you promise not to scream, or attack me."

"Why would we do that, Xan?" Willow asked worriedly.

Suddenly Xander changed. It happened almost too fast to register, and most of it was covered by a small dust devil-like thing that whipped up out of nowhere. One minute Xander was standing there, and the next

The next a HUGE big cat was standing in his place. It was similar in looks to a lynx, or perhaps a mountain lion, except it was purple and much larger. Large fangs dropped down from its mouth and huge claws clicked on the floor as Xander shifted around.

They all shot out of their chairs and backed away until they realised exactly what Xander was showing them. Willow was the first to move forward, reaching out and running a hand from Xander's head down his flank. The cat's fur was actually very hard, almost armored, but also silken to the touch rather than rough. Xander turned his head and purred slightly at her and as she looked right into the huge cats face, it winked at her. A huge smile split her face and she waved Buffy over. "Come here Buffy, he's amazing."

"He's frickin' huge!" Buffy said moving forward warily.

Xander chuffed a laugh which came out as a sort of half growl half purr that made Buffy back off a step again. Then when she was sure he was not going to attack her, she shifted forward again and reached slowly out. Once her hand was on his head she looked at him in surprise. "You don't feel like a cat really, your fur feels almost armoured, but still silky."

Xander nodded carefully, and then backed away moving towards the wooden training dummy Buffy often used for practise. He cast a look over his shoulder; even in his feline form it was obvious that he was asking permission to show them what he could do. Giles nodded as did Buffy, and they stood back to watch.

Xander closed in on the dummy and then his claws flashed out in a raking move that seemed to leave a red after-image. Huge furrows appeared on the wood where his claws had passed and the dummy rocked quite a bit. Then there was a red flash that lit up the area and the dummy literally exploded into pieces. Once the dust had settled Xander sheepishly shifted back into himself and looked at them. "Urh - whoops"

~#~

Harmony Kendall slipped out of the computer store as surreptitiously as she was able, her eyes glancing around behind her dark glasses to make sure no one had seen her. She was in disguise, or what she thought of as a disguise. Dark glasses, fedora hat and a trench coat. She looked like an extra from a spy movie, but she had not gotten a second look from the people in the store. The bag she held casually at her side contained the latest copies of World of Warcraft and its various expansions ready to be installed on her laptop at home. Which would be the first time she had used it since her father bought it for her.

The truth was she was curious. She had seen the game in action a few times now; had even had a tinker when no one was around to check on her at Levinson's house. She found herself quite liking it, but more importantly, she was curious about her own class. She had read all the information they could find of course and since it was about her, she had remembered it pretty well. That said, there was no substitute for actually playing the class for a while. She even knew the server Jonno and Xander used so she could join them if she wanted.

She was not entirely certain when they had become Jonno and Xander to her. In truth, and in any normal situation, she would have nothing to do with them. That said, they had both gone out of their way to help her out and, she had to admit, that meant something to her. Without them she would have been a danger to herself and those around her as the power was there, waiting to be used and tended to come out when she least expected it. Unlike them, though, she did not have the full package of the Hallowe'en night's possession. They had detailed back histories for their characters which meant they remembered their training and personalities of the characters. In Jonno's case, it had made him a lot more confident and it looked good on him, though at times he had a somewhat fiery temper. Xander was even more impressive. His character had over 10,000 years of experience crammed into his head, and it had made the once geeky young boy into a wiser man. In fact, she was thankful of it, because without those memories she had a feeling that Xander would not have helped her out. Because of them, he had the maturity to look past their history and move forward.

For probably the first time in her life Harmony was grateful to someone, and she was not sure what to make of it. She knew her life had changed utterly; her original dreams were on hold at the very least, and she had to think about the future to include her new abilities. Xander had mentioned that she could help them out with the nightlife if she wanted, but that it was her choice, and furthermore it was one not to be made lightly. She had found herself actually thinking about it. She had these powers now, so what would she do with them.? She had the ability to heal people from even the most grievous of wounds. Something that Xander had told her would be more than a little useful in Sunnydale, especially at night. Should she ignore the fact they needed those talents, or should she put herself out to help them? A week ago that answer would have been 'get lost'. Now, after all they had done and continued to do for her, she was not so sure anymore.

With another glance around, Harmony set off towards her home and spent the next few hours in front of her laptop. She prayed her old friends would not find out about all this, because she knew that her reputation would be ruined. However, oddly enough, that was mattering to her less and less. Her old friends would have shunned her had she talked to them, but they would not have helped her out during such a trying time of change and confusion, and she was starting to realise that while the two geeks she was quickly becoming close to should have hated her, they did not. Her old friends, though, would, if they found out she was different from them, and that made her wonder if she had the right friends in the first place.


	6. Chapter 6

Shifting Heart Chapter 06

Xander looked up at the chime of the door and placed what he was doing to one side. Getting up he realised just how long he had been sitting in one place, and stretched slightly to relieve the crick in his neck before he made his way to the intercom. Since the apartment in which he was now living was one of the newest and most high tech in the neighbourhood it was a video system and, after he had made a few changes in the system, he was able to see Jonno standing with Harmony, and that they were both human. Though Harmony appeared to be trying to hide her identity with a hat and dark glasses, the fact that her trench coat accentuated her figure rather than hiding it, made spotting her rather easy. Without a word, Xander buzzed them up and opened the door. Then he walked back to his workbench and put his foot back on the sewing machines peddle.

It was the sound of his sewing that greeted Jonno and Harmony as they arrived at the front door. Glancing at each other at the strange noise, they walked in and saw Xander leaning over what he was working on. It looked like an assault harness made out of leather, and to one side they could see a completed pair of pants and a jacket.

"Jeaz Harris, gay much," Harmony said as she breezed into the apartment, her eye giving the place a critical once over. She had to admit she was actually quite impressed with the tasteful d cor, and though she rolled her eyes at all the boy toys laying around the place, she could see the money on display.

Xander half looked up from his work and smirked at her, "Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't most of the best fashion designers in the world men?"

"Yep, and most of the best are gay," Harmony pointed out with a smirk of her own.

Xander chuckled and replied, "All generalisations are false, Harm."

She cocked a perfect eyebrow at that, but held her peace.

"Wow, Xan, nice place you have here." Jonno enthused as he also cast an eye around the place. His eyes in particular came to rest on a state of the art AlienWare PC system set up in one corner with a huge monitor and speakers arrayed around it. He would love a system like that, but then he was not a millionaire; at least not yet.

"Thanks, Jonno, take a seat guys, and I'll be with you in a sec." Xander said, "Kitchen is that away," he added with a wave towards the open plan kitchen just visible from where they were in the apartment.

Jonno nodded and walked towards it. "Want anything?" he asked Harmony.

"Soda," Harmony replied and took a seat in one of the nice plush leather armchairs, one toned leg crossing over the other. She looked at Xander as he was leaning over away from her, and took a moment to admire the changes in him. Halloween had somewhat improved his muscle mass and tone, and he was looking good for it. Better, in fact, than most of the jock boyfriends she had dated. If he were not such a geek, she would date him in a New York minute.

Silence reigned for a while in the apartment and then the sewing machine started up for a long moment. Finally, Xander turned it off with a grunt of happiness, obviously finished. He held up the new garment with a critical eye and looked it over. It would be tough. He had armoured it as best he could, even added some plating for trauma just in case, and it had a series of extra pockets and clips for various things. It was designed for patrol to fit over a shirt and under a jacket. It was pitch black, as were the other two items he had made that evening, and all of them were designed to be as hardwearing as possible.

"Nice get up," Jonno commented walking back into the area with three cokes, one for each of them.

"Thanks," Xander said, "they're for patrolling. I finally told the gang today."

"Does that mean I'm on?" Jonno asked a hint of excitement in his tone.

"Yep," Xander replied, looking at him cautiously, "Just remember this is dangerous and vampires, while nice and flammable, are tricky to fight."

Jonno waved him off, "I know, I know. You worry too much."

"No," Xander replied deadly serious, "I worry just enough."

"Okay, I'll be careful." Jonno said with an eye roll.

"Seriously Jonno, you have to be careful. Don't forget there will be civilians around now and, unlike the game, you can miss and hit them."

Jonno nodded seriously, "That one I am painfully aware of Xan," he said.

Happy that, for now at least, Jono was taking things seriously, Xander took the coke with a smile of thanks.

"They don't know about me do they?" Harmony asked with a hint of curiosity and fear in her voice. She was not sure how to feel about the gang knowing truth be told.

"Nope, they know *of* you, but not who you are. I figured if you want to join us later, I would tell them later on. Until then your secret - your rules." Xander told her seriously.  
She flashed him a smile, and then lapsed into silence for a moment. Then her face brightened again as she asked "Have you made what I asked for yet?"

Xander smiled, "Actually I have. I tried to make it as feminine as I could, and I think I did okay. It has some extra stats on it as well. At least I think so, you'll have to try it on and then we should be able to tell from that health sense we all have."

"Stats?" Jonno asked.

"Not tried to make anything yet?"

"Not yet, was going to ask if I could use that sewing machine actually."

"No worries." Xander said, as he walked to a nearby closet and pulled out the top for Harmony. "I think I got the size right." He commented, passing the garment to her.

She eyed it critically; it was black, as were most of Xander's designs, though this one had a line of blue either side of the bodice top. It was shaped to her as best she could tell and would show a fair bit of skin. Not that she was overly worried about that. As she held it in her hands, she had a sense of power from it that was strange, but almost comforting.

Jonno and Xander eyed her with some enthusiasm. Not just because she would look seriously hot in the top either, but also because they were interested in seeing if she could wear if successfully and get the full measure of use out of it. Priests in the game could only wear items made of cloth, but this was real life, and there was no real reason why any of them could not wear whatever they liked. Jonno had already decided to start making his own cloth gear, mostly because it would fit in with his self-image more. Nevertheless, if Harmony joined them, the more protection she had the better.

Harmony had, oddly enough, managed to grow on both of them. Despite the fact she was occasionally caustic and still treated them both like social lepers, this had toned down significantly of late, and she was actually kinda of funny when she let her hair down. They both found themselves being quite protective of her. In truth, that could be a hang back to their characters and they both knew that Priests, while powerful in their own right, needed looking after in a battle situation.

"Got somewhere I can try this on?"

"Bedroom over there," Xander said pointing off to the right, "Or bathroom over there," he said pointing to the left.

Harmony nodded and walked towards the bedroom. "Mirror in here?" she asked as she walked past.

"Yep," Xander answered simply.

Once she was gone, Jonno turned to Xander, "Think it'll work?"

"We can only wait and see. I think it might though. You and I have both noticed the differences. I have a theory about them in part, but if this works I'd just put it down to good luck on our part."

Jonno suddenly laughed causing Xander to look at him strangely. "Sorry, was just thinking of the armour stat on you if you wore Plate and turned into a bear."

Xander laughed as well, "That would be insane. Shame we don't have a blacksmith around, huh?"

They chatted back and forth for a moment as they waited for Harmony to reappear, talking about various things from how their day had gone to when Jonno would start to patrol properly. Then about five minutes later Harmony walked out of the bedroom and did a twirl. "What do you think, boys?" she asked with amusement. She was sure of their response, and it appeared Jonno was actually drooling, and, despite his newfound cool, even Xander was showing that he liked the look.

"Wow," Xander said eventually, "I'm good," he added with a laugh.

"Now I need a skirt to go with it."

"Skirt or pants?"

Harmony tapped her chin in thought as Xander elbowed Jonno out of the dream world in which he was living, "Skirt. I'd look good in this and a skirt."

"That you would," Xander agreed wholeheartedly. "I'll get on that tonight. How long?"

"Just above the knee of course," Harmony said with a smile then frowned, "Or don't you like my legs?"

Xander smirked, and did not reply seeing that trap a mile off. "I'll get on it. Now how do you feel? I sense extra life for sure and I think more potential power from you. What about you Jonno"

"Huh, what, oh yeah, definitely. I'd say it's a success."

"Great, then I'm going to need a few sets of these," Harmony said dong another spin that sent pulses racing.

"Erh - give me some time on that. Buffy has demanded I make her something as well."

"Buffy? Why?"

"She found out I made my own stuff and demanded I make her something."

"She won't be able to make use of the stats though, will she?" Jonno asked.

"You know, I dunno. I was going to make her something with some attack power, and well everything I can imbue into it, to be honest. Give her a little bit of an edge."

Harmony rolled her eyes and sat down, "You are such a loser, Harris, there is no way that girl is interested in you even I can see that. Move on already."

He frowned at her tone of voice. He would have missed it before Halloween, but he could swear she sounded almost jealous. He shook that off, because there was no way Harmony was jealous when it came to him; it just did not compute.

Jonno was also looking at her a little suspiciously, but said nothing.

"Well, what's on the cards tonight?" Harmony asked, "More spell training?"

Xander smiled, "Actually - no. I have a martial arts instructor coming here in an hour to start training us."

"Why?" Jonno and Harmony said together, and then glared at each other.

"Just because we're powerful with magic now, and probably won't ever need it, does not mean that we should ignore other ways of protecting ourselves. There may come a time when we are unable to cast, or shift in my case. On the other hand, when we are in a public place and cannot use our spells anyway. We will need to fall back on something else to help protect others and ourselves. Besides, Martial Arts teach control and discipline, as well as raise our general fitness levels. None of that sounds like a bad thing to me."

Grumbles were his answer, but neither Jonno nor Harmony told him no outright, so Xander figured he had won that argument before it even got going.

~#~

Jason Bell arranged the various magical items he had prepared around himself. He was sitting in the centre of a pentagram, his ceremonial robes arrayed around him. His eyes lit with an almost religious fever on the centerpiece of his collection. A goblet that appeared to be made out of black metal he had coined as fel iron in his head. It did not matter to him that Fel Iron was green in World of Warcraft, he had his delusions, and he was not letting anyone tell him differently. Thanks to Halloween night a month and a bit ago, he had ascended, and he intended to make full use of that. Already he had killed a few of the jocks who had tortured him for years, and he had enjoyed it. His black and green shadow bolts killed them painfully while leaving no evidence for the police to collect against him. He felt like a god now, but even that much power was not enough for him; he wanted more, as much as he could get his greedy hands on, in fact. Thus he had used his families' money to reach into the demonic underworld and his own considerable influence over demons to find this goblet.

The goblet was said to be able to traverse dimensional barriers and he wanted to do just that, to reach out to a powerful demon and drain it of its fel energies. That would charge him up even more than he already was. The demonic taint that flowed through his veins was unlike anything any human had felt before and he had been unprepared for it. The very first time he had cast a spell had, in effect, been his undoing.

Where once there had been an unassuming twenty something college student, there was now a shell of a man obsessed with power and gaining more. He did not eat, or drink anymore; instead he used the twisted demonic energies to survive and they allowed him to do just that, but not without cost. Not that Jason Bell noticed that cost, or noticed that his eyes were turning black, or that his shadow seemed to be separate from him and starting to turn to a slightly glowing green color. His eyes were focused on the possible source of more power that existed right in front of him.

His weak voice mumbled the last few lines of the spell he had created; activating the goblet's innate abilities, and the dimensions were severed into a portal that lay in front of him, snapping and hissing with power; an almost angry display of magical portent.

Then Jason Bell made the last mistake of his current existence and reached out mentally into that portal, smiling when he made contact with a source of immense power. He welcomed it into his being and, at that very moment, Jason Bell was no more.

~#~

Liam Sanders stepped off of the bus and looked around warily. He hadn't been back to Sunnydale since Halloween night. A night that had wrought some changes in the young man. Officially he went to LA for college, but he had been thinking of moving to the arts focused college of Sunnydale, and had been checking out the campus the night in question, in particular one of the fraternities of the campus and had visited their party, which had just gotten plain old fashion weird in short order. In fact the entire night had pretty much put him off the idea of attending Sunnydale U' completely. Until he had noticed some changes in himself.

It had started slowly at first, weird dreams of battles against creatures that he hadn't ever seen before. Memories of places that he couldn't have been to nor heard about. Then he had noticed an awareness in the people around him, how healthy they were, how powerful and a few other minor details. He found whilst down his fathers gun club that he was now a dead shot with anything that came to hand, and in some cases he had managed to literally blow apart some of the targets. Though he was happy, in those cases that he had been alone on the range, after hours. Then he had found he could track just about anything anywhere. He knew, for instance, that there was a rat in a nearby dumpster, a dog down the alley and something that he didn't even recognize appeared to be moving underneath him.

To put it simply, he had become about as freaked out as he had ever been in his entire life. Then, as his father had taught him, he pulled himself together and began to investigate what could be causing the changes wrought within him. This was one of the reasons he was now back in Sunnydale; the place where it had all started.

Jason was not quite sure how he was going to find out what had happened, though he had a few ideas. Firstly he was going to go and check out where he had brought his costume, and then he was going back to the frat house and ask a few pointed questions. Then maybe, just maybe, he could pick up a trail, since as of late he was so good at following them.

He shouldered his rucksack with a few essentials in its depths and set off towards the nearest hotel. First things first; he knew he had to find somewhere to lay down his head of an evening, as he sensed that being out at night in Sunnydale was not a good idea. 


	7. Chapter 7

**Shifting Heart **

**Chapter 07**

The graveyard was unusually full that night. Both Xander and Jonno were on patrol. This was fine by Buffy since she was actually quite looking forward to seeing what the mage could do. She already knew, to a degree, what Xander could do after he had blown up her training dummy. He told her the flash was the visual representation of Mangle, and if she had looked closely, she may have seen a cyclone-like effect. Although he wasn't too sure if she had spotted it.

Buffy sent a glance to her dark haired friend. She liked the changes in him to a degree, though she was not too sure about the new confidence levels. He seemed even more confident in himself than Giles at times, and that seemed a little unnatural to the teenager. Considering the way Xander had been before, he no longer seemed to feel the need to fill silences, though he did still do the quip fu thing, for which she was actually grateful. It may drive Giles up the wall, and occasionally annoy even her, but it did help to bolster her. Hell, at times it bolstered them all.

At the moment, he was walking along as if he had not a care in the world, chatting away with Jonno and occasionally darting looks into the night. Buffy wondered if, like her, he knew that they were being stalked. There were quite a few members of the undead population of Sunnydale creeping around in the graveyard that night. Xander turned again, this time catching her eye and winking. Xander knew, she could tell, that now all she had to do was give the word and they would all spring into action. Jonno, to her surprise, also looked back and winked. Apparently - and it made sense - he also could tell there were vampires around as well.

This was crunch time and what they had come to see. Jonno mainly, but also Xander, to see if they could fight and, of course, how they fought. Therefore, she gave Jonno a nod and watched as the short person turned to his taller companion and said a few words to him. For his part, Xander just nodded and said, "Light them up Jonno."

Jonno let out a chuckle and lifted his hand, in which a fireball was already growing with alarming speed. When it was a good size, he hefted it back in a pitchers throw and sent it careening off into the darkness.

Buffy's sharp eyes tracked it through the night, watching as it flew past several shocked vampires and eventually hit a tombstone some feet away. She was quite disappointed that he had missed, until she realised that was not the point of the exercise. Whatever sort of magic the fireball was made out of it continued to burn where it was spread all over the tombstone, lighting up the entire area in its red orange glow.

"Now that's something you can't do in the game," Xander commented wryly.

"I know, cool huh?" Jonno replied as he drew his hands back over his head. The entire area around him was covered in a sheen of ice that somehow did not affect Xander. Then when he had built up a good bolt of ice in his hands, he flung it forward towards one of the approaching vampires. The shot did not kill the vampire, but it did slow it down considerably.

"Show off," Buffy heard Xander whisper to Jonno. The smaller man smirked and, with a quick movement of his hand, the Vampire suddenly lit aflame. It screamed and disappeared into a cloud of dust, nearly taking out a nearby vampire with it.

Meanwhile the remaining vampires had gotten close enough to force a more physical confrontation. However, Jonno did not stop casting his spells even as the vampires converged on his position; instead he half turned to Xander and said, "Tank for me?"

"If you think it'll work." Xander said rearing back, throwing up his hands, which quickly turned into massive paws. His arms shortened slightly and grew radically thicker, a small wind kicked up dust around him, and as he bent forwards to complete his transformation everyone lost sight of him for a moment. Suddenly there was a deafening roar and where Xander had stood there was an enormous bear. It was easily twice the size of a Kodiak bear and looked to be plated with heavy muscle. Much to Xander's surprise his challenging roar actually seemed to work and all the vampires turned on him instead.

One vampire struck out with his claws and scratched over the surface of Xander's fur, actually kicking up sparks where claw hit fur. This was fine by Xander and he felt a red mist descend over his vision as he began to become enraged. A huge paw suddenly struck out in a raking move across the full 180 degrees in front of where Xander was facing leaving a red after image in the air. All of the vampires in its path screamed out in rage and dived at Xander with retribution in their hearts.

Meanwhile Jonno was picking them off methodically with well-placed fireballs, his eyes alight with battle madness and more than a little hyperactive about the entire thing. It was as if the game had come to life for him and he loved every minute of it.

As Jonno and Xander fought the rest of the Scooby gang were rooted to the spot, their eyes wide open and jaws hanging. The sheer brute force the Bear was showing and the force of nature that was Jonno in full flow was making them all more than a little surprised to say the least.

Jonno struck out with another well-placed fireball and then held his arms up to the sky. It was if a huge blizzard had kicked up out of nowhere and large chunks of ice fell from the sky and began impaling vampires left and right. Some dusted straight away, whilst others were merely pinned to the floor. Xander dealt with those in short order, his huge claw raking across the downed vampires and knocking off heads like dandelions before he reared up and, in the reverse of his transformation, he stood before them breathing hard but otherwise seemed un-effected. Around them was a heavy coating of vampire dust and the odd survivor pinned by the large icicles Jonno had summoned.

Xander looked around, seemingly quite impressed and then with an almost flex like movement of his hands speared each vampire with a bolt from the heavens with what could only be described as moonbeams. Whatever the actual content of the spell, it worked well enough to Buffy's eyes, as each vampire was quickly dispatched to the afterlife. Jonno followed Xander's example and used a flame strike spell to cleanse the ground of the remaining vampires in a wholesale manner.

After only a few short minutes, there was only the occasional waft of vampire dust to prove that anything had happened.

"Bloody hell," Giles breathed.

"And that's all she wrote," Jonno said, although his voice was a good octave higher than normal due to the pure adrenaline shooting through his system. "That was freaking cool, man!" He added to Xander who was shooting him an amused look.

Xander had to agree that it was. The vampires had been dumb enough to concentrate on Xander when the real threat to their continued existence had been the much squishier Mage, almost like the NPC's (Non-Player Characters) in the game. Xander was not quite sure why they had reacted that way, but he was glad they had. It meant that he could protect the others by 'tanking' for them while they dealt with the various denizens of Sunnydale's nightlife from behind. It was unlikely that there was much that could really hurt him badly in normal patrols and if Harmony agreed to come along for the more dangerous missions, he would be well covered there as well. However, the thought that he could, someday, trust Harmony with his very life was still a little strange to him to say the least.

"That was amazing," Willow commented, looking at the destruction the short man had created around them. There was a little property damage around the place and there was a coating of not only dust but also ice on the ground, but overall it had been very impressive to watch.

"It was," Buffy agreed, "but we need to work out what you can do to fit into a team. With us, I mean. I don't want to accidentally get in the way of one of those fireballs and be toasted. Are there other things you can do that aren't quite so - big bang?"

"That's a good point Buffy, but did you not notice that the ice failed to have any effect on Xander?" Giles put forth.

"I had noticed that, yeah, but I thought that was because Xan could ignore it because of what he is." Buffy told her mentor.

"I can't." Xander inserted, "It's something from the game, unless you're dueling he, or rather we, shouldn't affect those in our party, or, in other words those of you who are working with us at the time."

"Can we test that without getting burnt?" Buffy said curiously.

"I'm not sure," Xander admitted looking around and scooping up some ice. It did not even feel cold to him as he passed it to Buffy. "What do you feel?"

Buffy looked bemusedly at the snow in her hands. "Nothing, it's like it's not there."

"That answers that then." Jonno said with a smile, still a little hyped up on the events of the evening.

"Now, not so fast Jonno." Xander said cautiously. "Just because the spells themselves may not hurt anyone we're allied with, the after-effects of the spells might."

Jonno looked at him curiously so Xander continued. "I noticed earlier one of your fireballs missed slightly. It took out a vamp but the majority of the 'ball' itself hit the ground and kicked up a lot of dirt and stuff. If that got in Buffy's eyes when she was fighting, for instance, bad things could happen. On the other hand, if you iced some metal and it broke up it could shatter and the shards could hurt people. That's why we have to be careful."

Jonno nodded, seeing the truth of what Xander was saying. He was eager and was far from stupid. These sorts of concerns just were not a bother in the game, but the game was not real life and, as he was beginning to realize, you had to be more careful in real life. It sucked, but given the joy of battle itself and finally being so powerful - a dream come true for him - he could take a little sense if it meant he had these wicked powers. It was as Spiderman used to say, 'With great power, comes great responsibility'. Well he could live with that, just as long as he was allowed a little fun at the same time, and flaming vampires was definitely fun.

"Other than that though, I think we did well. We just have to plan how we can fit together as a team. The way I see it, Buffy is a warrior, and raid leader. Willow could be considered another caster class, though at the moment low level. Then Giles is like tactics and another melee fighter. Angel when he's around is yet another melee fighter and one that is a bit like a rogue, I suppose, with his stealth abilities." Xander mused. "Then you have me, the tank." He said with a smirk. "The one that takes the knocking and keeps the bad guys' attention so everyone else can poke away at them with their own abilities."

Jonno looked seriously at Xander for a long moment. "A tank is virtually useless without a good healer."

"For anything serious I'd have agree. But I have enough 'life' that this wasn't all that much of a problem."

"Still " Jonno trailed off, his meaning obvious. It would help if they could get Harmony involved properly; there were not many healers that could compete with a priest at full power and at the top of their game.

Xander just nodded to show he knew what Jonno was leading up to; neither had to say it. They were both aware of what needed to be done, but Harmony had shown very little interest in becoming involved with the nightly fights. It would interrupt her dating schedule and hanging out with her friends, if they could truly be called that. That said, however, both Jonno and Xander had noticed that she was loosening up in that regard of late.

"So what's next?" Jonno asked, changing the subject.

Giles smiled. "This is usually where Buffy et al go to the Bronze."

~#~ Harmony raised an elegant eyebrow as she watched the loser squad enter the Bronze. She was there with her date for the evening, some jock from Sunnydale High who was failing to impress her with his usual sure-fire ways of getting into her panties. She was not sure why it was not working exactly because up to a few weeks ago it would actually have done. She was not easy by any stretch of the imagination, but then she was not that hard to get into bed either. She quite enjoyed the whole dating thing if she was honest with herself, but it was starting to lose its shine for her. The jock only wanted her for her status and her looks. He was not the least bit interested in her personality or mind, let alone her friendship. He had one thing in mind, and for some reason that was bothering her.

Almost immediately she zeroed in on Jonno who was doing fine, full health mana stores already growing. Obviously, they had done the show and tell that evening, she was glad that he was not hurt. Then she flicked over the others, who also seemed to be fine and then finally, almost as if she knew what she would fine, she locked on to Xander Harris.

It wasn't life threatening and he was already building his own magical and health stores automatically, but he had obviously been hurt. It almost amused her to notice that no one had bothered to say anything. Jonno was not looking at Xander with any concern or anything like that and while Harmony was certain her life sense was better than the Mage, he would be able to tell that Xander had been hurt.

The problem was she wanted to go over there and heal him right up. To do that she would have to somehow get away from her date and then get Xander away from the loser squad. Tricky, to say the least on both counts. Something in her made her want to help him and she was not entirely sure what it was. Perhaps it was the 'healer' in her now, or just that she did not like to have one of the two people that had helped her hurt in any way.

"Hey Mike, I need to go powder my nose," she said cutting off what the jock was saying to her, what it was she had no idea. She had long ago tuned out what he was saying. Jocks, she was finding, talked mostly about themselves. Geeks on the other hand could actually talk about diverse topics. Admittedly, sometimes those topics included comic books and computers, but she had found that it was not all the time. A line from a movie came to mind, from Porkies or something about geeks and sex, and she was starting to wonder if it was actually true. Light alone knew, she had not had a good sexual encounter in a long time.

"Okay Babe," Mike said waiving her off and wandering off to find his teammates.

Harmony rolled her eyes and walked off into the club, heading towards Xander and his motley crew. As she passed she made a motion with her eyes for him to follow her, which Xander did with very little fuss, and she led him out of the club into a back alley.

"We must stop meeting like this," Xander commented wryly as they arrived in the less than salubrious locale.

"Uh huh, what have you been doing now?" Harmony harped as she began casting one of the many healing spells in her arsenal. As Xander and Jonno taught her, she only cast what she figured she would need to get the job done, rather than wasting her mana with a higher-level spell that would be a case of overkill.

Xander smiled as the spell washed over him, refreshing every part of his body all at the same time. "Oh god, that's good," he grinned.

"Why didn't you heal yourself?" Harmony wanted to know. Druids were the ultimate jack-of-all-trades after all.

"I want to keep that to myself for the time being," Xander told her seriously.

"So you came here thinking I'd do it?" she asked archly.

"Actually, no. I figured it'd come up in time by itself." Xander replied, then smirked, "Though you couldn't resist it could you?"

Harmony glowered at him for a moment before smiling slightly, "You two are turning me into a geek."

"Only in that we geeks actually care about each other," Xander replied carefully.

"You don't think the popular crowd cares about each other?"

"Not in the least bit, no." Xander admitted with a shrug.

Harmony frowned at that, but couldn't really correct him. "Some of us do," she rejoined weakly.

"Of course, but most of you don't. We 'geeks' do, because we have to look out for each other when the jocks are always picking on us, and generally making our lives more difficult than they have to be during high school. Which, let's face it, is a counter productive thing to do. For one there are always more geeks in a school than the social elite, and secondly High School only lasts a few years, so why make it more difficult than it has to be." He flashed a smile, "Thanks for the heal though Harm; it was good of you."

"Anytime, but - just - try not to get hurt."

Xander flashed a smile and walked back into the club, leaving her to ponder his words.


End file.
